19 Years Ago
If I had one audience that I always thought of, it was you.
It had never been anybody else, surprisingly, or not. But as I sit here, now that we are older, I look back with fondness... even wistful about those days we spent so recklessly.
19 years ago, we were fresh-faced. I was even more so than you. I was the new girl in school. You, you were a boy who knew loss too early. You were mature for that age. You were the one they all said was independent.
I don't remember what happened that day, I only recall saying 'yes' to you after asking around about you. I waited. I waited all day, only for you to reply so late. As though you avoided having to see my response, only to finally brave yourself. I wonder if that's a habit you still have today, that leads to me thinking of you before, during and after my prayers.
The first time I saw your face was before this exchange. I remember that moment clearly, like a scene that imprinted itself in my mind, not knowing how much it would mean to me, yet somehow captured like my soul knew at that instance. When we had a field trip to the Exhibition about Islamic Civilisation, and you were walking with your friend, and I with mine. I still remember us exchanging glances, and me, not knowing just who you would be to me, because your friend's face blurred into the background until I learned his name much later. I don't remember what my first impression of you was, I just knew it was you, without knowing your name.
Without knowing us.
Did I - in the sense of romantic feelings that I know today - like you? No. But I was excited, to know someone thought I was beautiful enough to be liked. You were the first and really the only person I had the privilege of getting to know after calling myself your girlfriend, instead of getting to know you before.
But how did that happen, I wonder? It was all a blur.
Between exchanging glances and our relatively bland texts, what was there to be attached to? It took one whole grade before we actually talked to each other in school grounds! How silly. How adorable. How childish. To be the campus couple that only conversed with our phones, or on occasions, the MSN messenger.
Do you remember? Us frolicking in our stupidity in the years that followed?
But even so.
Even after it all ended, I still look at this date with the soft fondness, of missing those innocent days. Of the burn in getting to know you. Of the cold longing to be seen. To study you like one of my exam papers. To have our pockets of moments, when we hope to be observed by the other.
P.S. Did you see the keychain that you gave me, hanging on my handbag? The leather has aged now. How quaint. It is just like us.